Tag Archives: night

Till Tomorrow

nature, poetry, summer, , ,

TILL TOMORROW 

Good night! good night! — the golden day
Has veiled its sunset beam,
And twilight’s star its beauteous ray
Has mirrored in the stream; —
Low voices come from vale and height,
And murmur soft, good night! good night!

Good night! — the bee with folded wings
Sleeps sweet in honeyed flowers,
And far away the night-bird sings
In dreamy forest bowers,
And slowly fades the western light
In deepening shade, — good night! good night!

Good night! good night! — in whispers low
The ling’ring zephyr sighs.
And softly, in its dreamy flow.
The murm’ring brook replies;
And, where yon casement still is bright,
A softer voice has breathed good-night!

Good night! — as steals the cooling dew
Where the young violet lies.
E’en so may slumber steal anew
To weary human eyes.
And softly steep the aching sight
In dewy rest — good night! good night!

-Pamelia Sarah Yule, (1826 – 1897) Canada

Igor Grabar, Summer Evening

 

 

Flying at Night

poetry, , ,

Back in May, I wrote about how I had been given a nighttime airplane ride with my son-in-law as pilot. I have had the experience on commercial flights, too, and found it enthralling whenever we were flying low enough to see the patterns of lights down below. I wonder if I will have that chance again…

FLYING AT NIGHT

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.

-Ted Kooser

View from plane – Wisconsin

The sound of her deathless deep.

home, ocean, poetry, , , ,

SOFT SOUND

When in some coastal townlet, on a night
of low clouds and ennui, you open
the window – from afar
whispering sounds spill over.

Now listen closely and discern
the sound of seawaves breathing upon land,
protecting in the night
the soul that harkens unto them.

Daylong the murmur of the sea is muted,
but the unbidden day now passes
(tinkling as does an empty
tumbler on a glass shelf);

and once again amidst the sleepless hush
open your window, wider, wider,
and with the sea you are alone
in the enormous and calm world.

Not the sea’s sound… In the still night
I hear a different reverberation:
the soft sound of my native land,
her respiration and pulsation.

Therein blend all the shades of voices
so dear, so quickly interrupted
and melodies of Pushkin’s verse
and sighs of a remembered pine wood.

Repose and happiness are there,
a blessing upon exile;
yet the soft sound cannot be heard by day
drowned by the scurrying and rattling.

But in the compensating night,
in sleepless silence, one keeps listening
to one’s own country, to her murmuring,
her deathless deep.

-Vladimir Nabokov

White Night. Night Dawn – Arkady Rylov, 1915

 

The darkness keeps its appointment.

home, poetry, , ,

LAMPS

Eight o’clock, no later
You light the lamps,

The big one by the large window,
The small one on your desk.

They are not to see by—
It’s still twilight out over the sand,

The scrub oaks and cranberries.
Even the small birds have not settled

For sleep yet, out of the reach
Of prowling foxes. No,

You light the lamps because
You are alone in your small house

And the wicks sputtering gold
Are like two visitors with good stories

They will tell slowly, in soft voices,
While the air outside turns quietly

A grainy and luminous blue.
You wish it would never change—

But of course the darkness keeps
Its appointment. Each evening,

An inscrutable presence, it has the final word
Outside every door.

-Mary Oliver